Thursday, April 30, 2015

On Thursday night, baseball
players, coaches and others at North Forsyth High School contributed to the
fight against childhood cancer by getting buzz cuts at home plate.Members of the team made the commitment to have
their hair cut as part of their efforts to raise money for the Vs. Cancer
Foundation, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to saving kids’ lives by empowering
athletes and communities to fund life-saving childhood cancer efforts.” Several cancer survivors participated in the event. Bonnie Claire Shelton sang the national anthem. Jackson Hemley of North Forsyth and Savion Littlejohn of Reagan High School each threw a ceremonial first pitch. Jackson is a 5-year-old who had liver cancer. Before graduating in 2003, his father, Josh, played baseball for North Forsyth. Littlejohn is a Reagan football player who was diagnosed with a more of Non-Hodgin Lymphoma. As of Thursday, students had raised $4,461 for Vs. Cancer Foundation.Three professional barbers – Jamie
Rutledge and Rick Converse of Old Town Barber Shop and Dean Shore of Wake
Forest Barber Shop – were on hand as volunteers to do the honors.

Monday, April 27, 2015

In
recent days, Ray Randall, who teaches eighth-grade English at The Downtown
Schools, has been teaching a “History of Rock and Roll” class as one of the middle
school’s Discovery options.

Colin
Tribby, the school’s assistant principal, is friends with Rob Hotchkiss, the co-founder
of Train, a Grammy-winning band Train. At Tribby’s invitation, Hotchkiss
visited with students via a FaceTime video call to talk about music of the ‘90s.

Hotchkiss
is no longer with the band, but has started a new group with three of Train’s
old members.

Wednesday
was Earth Day and, at Konnoak Elementary School, students – with the help of science teacher Stacy Smith, first-grade teacher assistant Jeffrey Lanier, Principal Shelia Burnette and others - spent the day learning about gardening
for sustainability, composting, recycling, and planting. They also created a
butterfly garden and an international garden.

On
Thursday evening, Walkertown High School held a tree planting ceremony in remembrance of Tyler Gallimore.

“Pastor
Jesse Clubb, who has sons that attend Walkertown, officiated the service,”
said Jayne Koeslin, an Exception Children's teacher in the Occupational Course of
Study program at Walkertown. “Tyler was a student from the first graduating class of
Walkertown High School. Tyler passed away unexpectedly in July of
2014. He left behind family, staff and friends that thought
highly of him.

“Tyler
was in the Occupational Course of Study Program and wanted to work on diesel
engines. He loved fishing with his grandpa and hunting, along with
cherishing his mom. Tyler is greatly missed by all, but will now have a
flowering cherry tree that will remind us daily of him.”

Thursday, April 23, 2015

When the students in Laura Barnhardt’s third-grade class at
Caleb's Creek Elementary School learned about a plastic-bottle-recycling
competition, they decided to participate.

“My
class headed the whole bottle drive for our school and worked very
hard to raise awareness about recycling,” Barnhardt said. “We collected
bottles, labeled each bag, carried them out to our tractor trailer and loaded
them.

“Some
students came to the fair in Greensboro and unloaded the trailer. We had a
total weight of 1,854 pounds of plastic bottles collected in one month. We
won the competition and will be receiving $1,000 dollars for our school. We
plan to use that for instructional science materials and possibly a bike
rack.”

The students' drive had countless hours of help from student teacher Anna Powell and from such parents as Tina Swisher and Jolie Lencar, Barnhardt said.

It also had lots of help from the community.
ChemSource Direct in Kernersville provided bags for the students to use to collect
bottles. Such local businesses as Feeny’s Frozen Yogurt gave the bottles the
company was recycling to the students. Families, neighbors and other members of
the school community contributed.

Best
Logistics Group of Kernersville provided a tractor trailer to use to store the
bottles and to take them to the recycling station when the contest ended. By
the time, the students were done, it was about almost filled to the top.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

On Wednesday, April 29, Superintendent Beverly Emory
will serve as a guest chef at Five Points restaurant on South Stratford Road.

Emory is appearing as part of the restaurants
Celebrity Chef Series in which celebrities appear for a night and a percentage of
the proceeds goes to a worthy cause. In this case, 15 percent of proceeds will
go to Habitat for Humanity of Forsyth County.

Emory will be on hand from 6 to 9 p.m. The night
will feature a special menu and wine pairing.

Five Points is at 109 S. Stratford Road. If you have
questions, call 448-0970 or check online at Five Points

You will find more information about Habitat for
Humanity of Forsyth County at Habitat

Maggie Caldwell, who
teaches fifth grade at Clemmons Elementary School is one of 26 educators named
as a 2015 STEM Fellow by Discovery Place Education Studio.

The three-year fellowship
prepares local teachers for dynamic, hands-on learning experiences in order to
deliver high-impact STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) lessons in
the classroom that prepare students for real world challenges.

With more than 70
applications received, 26 educators from North Carolina and South Carolina were
selected for the 2015 STEM Fellows cohort.

“STEM Fellows is not
only about increasing STEM content in the classroom, but more importantly about
learning how to engage students in impactful, meaningful conversations that are
relevant in our everyday lives,” said Discovery Place Education Studio director,
Stephanie Hathaway. “There is an urgent need both locally and nationally to support
teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Our goal
is to equip them with the right tools, technology and confidence that they need
to broaden inquiry-based STEM education.”

STEM Fellows is the
flagship offering of Discovery Place Education Studio and is designed to give
teachers and educators skills and tools that can be adapted to meet the needs
of their own classrooms. Over the three-year program, participants will move
from learning about STEM content and science education to becoming community
problem solvers and engaging in action-based research in their own classrooms.

The new STEM Fellows
were invited to participate in Discovery Place Education Studio’s first annual
Carolinas STEM Conference last Friday, along with 95 other North and South
Carolina educators. The sold-out conference promoted active involvement from
its participants by offering hands-on and engaging demonstrations such as 3D
printing, simple soldering, circuit art and ocean literacy.

In addition to the
conference, STEM Fellows will begin their first year engaging in immersive
experiences that focus on supporting growth in pedagogy, before moving into
field experiences with STEM-based partners and completing a high level research
project.

The 2015 Fellows join a
network of Discovery Place’s previous Fellows from the past five years. STEM
Fellows participation is by application only. To qualify, applicants must be
full-time educators employed in North Carolina or South Carolina public,
private, parochial or charter schools. School or district-level facilitators
working with STEM educators and employees of informal education institutions
(e.g. museums, zoos) are also encouraged to apply.

Clemencia
Cardona-Estrada, who teaches kindergarten in the Spanish immersion program at Speas Elementary School, has
received a grant to attend the iEARN 2015 Conference and Your Summit at the end
of July.

“It is
in Brasilia, Brazil,” said Principal Robert Ash. “This will be great for her
and the school as a Global Gateway school.”

Cardona-Estrada
is from Manizales, Colombia. She has been teaching kindergarten for 21 years –
13 in Colombia and 8 in the United States.

As part
of the VIF Alumni grant/award, she will receive:

A $500 stipend for traveling to the conference.

iEARN conference admission.

Hotel accommodations for six nights, including breakfast
and lunch each day.

Transportation to and from the hotel/airport.

A half-day tour of Brasilia, followed by dinner out
with VIF staff and other alumni.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

If you’re a student in middle or high school and
would like to see your art on 5,000 bookmarks, you might want to enter the
bookmark art contest sponsored by Bookmarks and Arts for Art’s Sake.

The contest is open to middle and high school
students who live in Forsyth County during the 2014-15 school year. The subject
should have something to do with reading, books and/or writing.

Using the template available on the Bookmarks
website, you must submit a work of art in color. It can be a print, drawing,
painting collage, photo or produced on a computer. The artist’s name may not
appear on the art. One entry per student.

The printed bookmark will be about
3-inches-by-9-inches. The deadline is May 18. The winner will be notified by
June 12. The winning artist will be honored Aug. 28 at a reception at the Milton
Rhodes Center for the Arts and the work of the winner and runners up will be on
display through Sept. 21.

The
celebration began with a parade that included students and staff carrying
international flags. On the school campus, booths representing each continent were
set up. The booths had activities designed to engage students, parents and
guests.

The
afternoon also included entertainment by students and special guests. Vendors
were on hand and there as food donated by Winston Salem State University.

“There was
so much more that made this a huge success,” said Principal Mark Hairston. “Dr.
Emory was one of our attendees.”

About Me

We're here to share good news about people associated with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, to answer questions and to let you share your thoughts about how to make the schools better. If you have something that you would like for others to know about or want to ask a question, please send an email to Kim Underwood